


Capetown

by Theoroark



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Rebound, Strike Team era, Trans Gabriel Reyes, past r76 - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 08:11:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15287403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theoroark/pseuds/Theoroark
Summary: The Gobi front is at an absolute standstill, and so Gabriel decides to leave Ana in charge and finally fulfill the UN’s request for him to review their blue helmet operations. And since he’s really just doing this because he needs a distraction, he agrees to go to the South African base.He probably should have thought through that choice a bit more.





	Capetown

The Gobi front is at an absolute standstill, and so Gabriel decides to leave Ana in charge and finally fulfill the UN’s request for him to review their blue helmet operations. And since he’s really just doing this because he needs a distraction, he agrees to go to the South African base.

 

He probably should have thought through that choice a bit more. The people fleeing the country had been almost uniformly quite wealthy, and had all left the second they heard gunshots. He absolutely should have suspected their horror stories. But he still has to laugh in surprise as he surveys Capetown from overhead. The ruined buildings look like they fell a long time ago. There’s no smoldering wreckage and his pilot doesn’t seem concerned about anti-aircraft guns. The head of the unit– a tall man, looking to be of Arab descent, with a ridiculous mustache– grins when Gabriel tells him he’s a bit surprised at how calm things are.

 

“If the bulk of the white population had stayed, the humans would have decimated the Omnics,” he says, in a French accent as thick as his mustache is thin. “But everyone who could afford to leave, left. That made the two sides about equal. If they fought, they would have wiped each other out. And so they made a truce instead. Come,” he says, waving Gabriel over to a Jeep. “I want to show you around.”

 

There’s a lot to be impressed by here. Humans and Omnics are working collaboratively to rebuild the city. Their camps are separate, but the construction teams are mixed, and Gabriel watches a mother hand her child off to a resting Omnic so she can take her shift at a cement mixer. Late at night, when they got a little drunk and Torbjörn was out of earshot, the strike team would speculate amongst themselves about what a peace might look like, and if Omnics could ever be a part of it. For the first time, Gabriel has some idea of what that might look like.

 

But he can’t stop looking at Captain Lacroix.

 

Part of it, Gabriel tells himself, is because it’d be impossible not to. He gesticulates when he talks, his hands frequently flying in front of Gabriel’s face. He talks quite a bit on the tour (not that Gabriel minds, the captain is very well informed about the situation on the ground and his commentary is illuminating). But it’s not just that. He’s handsome, is the thing, stupid mustache and all. He has a nice smile and a cute habit of trying to flatten down his hair whenever the wind blows through the open windows. He’s also the highest-ranking UN representative in the country, and didn’t get to that point by being insensitive to political hazards. Like, say, hooking up with an agent he knows precious little about.

 

When they’re back at base, Captain Lacroix turns to him and asks, “Do you have any questions?”

 

“Do you want to get a drink?” Gabriel asks.

 

Captain Lacroix does.

 

-

 

Gerard, as he insists Gabriel call him, apologizes for their slapdash drinking experience. There’s no bar within walking distance of the base, and the taxi industry hasn’t started up again. All the booze on base is stored in foot lockers in the barracks. So “getting a drink” consists of Gerard letting them into the closed canteen, grabbing a couple bottles of wine he’d stashed in the kitchen, and the two of them sipping from plastic cups, seated on industrial metal benches.

 

“It’s fine,” Gabriel tells him. “A step up from what I’m used to, honestly.”

 

“Really?” Gerard says. “We thought that Overwatch would be–“ he cuts himself off and quickly looks down at the metal table. Gabriel cocks his head.

 

“You thought what?”

 

“Oh, never mind.”

 

“No, please. I’m curious what people think of us.”

 

“I guess we thought you guys were rock stars to the UN? We heard rumors about you guys having super advanced weaponry, and so, I don’t know– what are you doing?” He asks, as Gabriel pulls out his holovid and scrolls through it. Gabriel silently projects a picture of Ana ripping out an Omnic’s innards with her bare hands, and Gerard chokes a little.

 

“We have a great weapons engineer,” Gabriel says, looking down at the picture fondly. “But for the most part, we just make do.”

 

“So then. The story about your heat vision soldiers? That’s not true either?”

 

“Our what now?”

 

Gerard shares the gossip he’s heard for a while, about Overwatch and others. But Gabriel soon gets impatient. He pushes Gerard to talk about himself, and drinks and listens. Gerard had started out in the French intelligence community, but moved to the UN when the Omnic crisis broke out, because interspecies conflict made national security suddenly seem meaningless. He continued his intel work for them, and he thinks that’s why he’s been so successful in Capetown– he’s one of the few military officers who actually knows a thing about Omnic social norms. He loves the performing arts, and gets excited when Gabriel tells him how he designed costumes in college. His mother’s an Algerian Muslim and his father’s French Catholic, and he was raised with both as options but decided he was Muslim, through and through. Gabriel runs his fingers over the raised text on his dog tag that reads “NONE,” and points out the irony of his last name. Gerard Lacroix grins.

 

“I tell my mother that it’s her fault no mosque will have me, because of the last name,” he says. “Well, that among other things.” He laughs at his own joke, and its dumb and cheesy and Gabriel should be embarrassed for him.

 

“It’s late,” Gabriel says. “Do you want to come back with me?”

 

Gerard does.

 

-

 

Gerard goes to sleep fairly quickly, but Gabriel stays awake. He feels bad about it– it’s not fair to Gerard and it’s certainly not helping him– but he can’t help but compare Gerard to Jack.

 

It would be less painful, he thinks with an annoyance mainly directed at himself, if he had slept with more than one man before. He had made out with a boy when he was thirteen, and that had felt completely wrong, though he had misdiagnosed the reason at first. He had a few girlfriends after that and when he figured things out and came out to his family, he had joked to his mother that she was no longer the household’s token straight. He had had his suspicions after that but nothing had crystallized it quite like walking into his room at the SEP, seeing his shirtless roommate lying on his bunk. His instantaneous reaction had been that it was a shame they took away his phone, now he couldn’t text Mom and tell her sorry, but she’s on her own again. 

 

He and Jack had been dating ever since the SEP. So he has limited experience. He’s pretty sure Gerard was good, though. Thoughtful and giving and enthusiastic and all that. The fact that Gerard is trans too means Gabriel feels a certain breed of comfortable talking to him that had taken forever to even start to form with Jack. But it’s just not really a contest. Jack had time to learn his body, fuck, he had literally watched it be formed, under scalpels and syringes and IV drips that more often than not felt like they were killing him instead of saving him. He had years with Jack. He feels disappointed for completely bullshit reasons and he hates it. 

 

He closes his eyes and tries to sleep, he has to work tomorrow and it’s late, but his brain won’t stop. He did something stupidly politically risky, and he was disappointed. He wanted to move on, and he just feels more stuck. He used Gerard for literally nothing.

 

At some point, he falls asleep, and dreams about being chased and somehow knowing that he’s never going to get away.

 

-

 

After he leaves Gerard in the morning, he goes to his makeshift office. He had been scheduled to call Ana for a check-in, anyway.

 

“Good,” he says, as she finishes informing him of how everything, as expected, is utterly the same. He drums his fingers on his desk. “How is everyone?”

 

“Fine. Pretty bored, but fine. Liao’s trying to build a ping-pong table. Hopefully that helps.”

 

“Ping pong paddles are probably easy enough to improvise, but what’re you going to do for ping pong balls?”

 

“She thinks she found some sort of seed that she can hollow out to make it bounceable? I don’t know, Gabriel, you’ll have to ask her.” He laughs.

 

“Will do. So,” he says, keeping pains to maintain his casual tone. “How’s Jack?”

 

“The same,” Ana says briskly. He could push her to elaborate, but he doesn’t think she’ll be happy about that, and he wants to keep her around for advice on another matter.

 

“I slept with the head of the unit here,” he tells her.

 

Ana lets out a sigh so long and loud Gabriel has to move the holovid back a bit.

 

“You done?”

 

“I thought the whole point of you going halfway across the world was that I didn’t have to deal with your relationship bullshit,” she says.

 

“The whole point of me going halfway across the world was so that  _ I _ didn’t have to deal with my relationship bullshit.”

 

“Yeah, and you’re doing a bang-up job of that, clearly.” Gabriel says nothing and she sighs again, less dramatically this time. “Are you okay?”

 

“Yeah. I guess. I think so.” He taps his fingers on the desk. “It just… wasn’t what I was expecting.”

 

“What were you expecting?”

 

“To forget about Jack.” 

 

Ana leans back in her chair and runs her fingers through her hair. “That’s an understandable impulse, Gabriel, but you know it doesn’t work like that.” 

 

“It does for other people,” he grumbles.

 

“I don’t know what you want from me here. I’m not exactly the right person to go to for insight into the nuances of sexual attraction.” 

 

“I know, it’s just–” Now, he sighs. “I thought I was doing the right thing. Having a rebound. To move on. And it just made me sadder.”

 

“Gabriel,” Ana says gently. “It’s been two weeks.”

 

“I know,” he says, staring down at his desk.

 

“And you’d been with Jack for years.”

 

“I know.”

 

“You wanting to move on is a good start,” she says. He looks up quickly and she smiles. “But it’ll take time. Just do stupid shit in the meantime. Let it surprise you. Watched pots don’t boil.”

 

“I don’t like surprises,” Gabriel says.

 

“Well, tough shit.” Ana taps at her holovid, her eyes drawn elsewhere on screen. “Gerard Lacroix?”

 

“Yeah.” He frowns. “Wait. I never told you his name.”

 

“No, you didn’t. I’m just smart.” She moves her finger along the screen, scrolling down the page. “What’s with that mustache?” 

 

“I’m hanging up on you,” he says and does so, cutting off her cackle.

 

-

 

“I just got out of a really long relationship,” he tells Gerard as they patrol the shopping district. It’s mostly empty, it used to be an old human fortress but they seem to have abandoned it in a show of good faith to the Omnics. There are still some radicals hanging around, though, and the blue helmets have been trying to make sure they don’t break the peace.

 

Gerard nods. “I thought it might be something like that.” Gabriel winces.

 

“What gave it away?”

 

“Nothing in particular, don’t worry. I just have good intuition.” Gabriel rolls his eyes. “You don’t believe me?”

 

“Well, seeing as you’re only saying something after I told you…”

 

“How exactly would I have worked that into foreplay?” Gabriel snorts and gives a begrudging nod. Gerard stops and when Gabriel does as well, Gerard puts a hand on his shoulder. “I had no expectations from you from that night, Gabriel. And I still don’t.” 

 

Gabriel nods again. There’s a lump in his throat. “It’s not that I don’t like you, or that I don’t think there could be something, it’s just…”

 

“No, I know. Trust me.” 

 

“I’m sorry,” Gabriel says.

 

“You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

 

“No, I do, I should have told you.”

 

“That also would have been terrible foreplay,” Gerard says, and Gabriel laughs. He looks at Gerard and is suddenly reminded that he’s very handsome. He’s lit up in the moonlight, the sleeves of his fatigues are rolled up to show his wiry forearms. Gabriel takes a step closer. Gerard raises an eyebrow.

 

“We’re on patrol,” he says.

 

“Just a kiss,” Gabriel murmurs. Gerard smiles softly and pulls him close. They take stumbling steps back together, until Gerard’s back hits a storefront window. 

 

Then, right behind Gabriel, the street they were standing on explodes. Gabriel reacts instantly, diving to cover Gerard. Gerard’s not a small man, but Gabriel’s a super soldier, his reactions are quicker and his body is tougher and larger. He curls around Gerard and waits until the sounds of falling rubble have died down. Then, Gabriel pulls himself off him.

 

“You okay?” he asks.

 

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Gerard says, but it sounds more annoyed than pained. Gabriel laughs weakly, and offers him a hand. Gerard takes it and Gabriel pulls him up. “Thank you. You saved my life.”

 

Gabriel shakes his head. “It must have been a timed trigger explosion. If anything, you saved me by pulling us off the street.”

 

“Gabriel.”

 

“Gerard.” Gabriel puts a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t mention it.”

 

Gerard takes a breath and nods. He brings his head up a little, smiling. “But I did take us away from it. So I can tell my bosses about how I saved the Strike Commander, then?”

 

Gabriel groans and starts walking down the street again. “I told you my intuition was good!” Gerard yells after him.

**Author's Note:**

> For @collophora on tumblr, who has been drawing some amazing Gaberard stuff if you want more.
> 
> I'm @tacticalgrandma on tumblr if you want to talk to me there.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and any comments/kudos would mean the world to me!


End file.
